Publication Name
Agence France-Presse
The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed a new plan for offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, including the environmentally sensitive Arctic.
The proposed program for 2012-2017 sets out 12 lease sales for areas owned by the federal government in the Gulf of Mexico and three in Alaska, including the Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea areas off the northern Alaskan coast, and Cook Inlet.
But it did not open up for exploration the politically sensitive Atlantic or Pacific coastlines, or the eastern Gulf of Mexico along the Florida coast.
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Marilyn Heiman, US Arctic Program director at the Pew Environment Group, said "the Arctic is extremely fragile and remote... this is a very perilous and dangerous proposal."
"We are not opposed to drilling in the Arctic Ocean," she told AFP, but there "should be key limits" so that it does not negatively impact marine animals, fish and communities.
"There needs to be a very surgical approach" in deciding where drilling can be done. "There's no proven technique to cleaning up oil in ice," she added.
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Read the full article, New US Offshore Oil Leasing Plan Includes Arctic, on the Google News website.